


Bruit

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2640221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>20 moments in Trowa's life. A hodge podge of pairings, you can probably assume everyone is having sex or in love with everyone else, but only the edges of the pentagram that touch Trowa are explicitly mentioned. Mentions of sex and mentions of bad sex/nonconsensual situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruit

1.

“ _I’m freezing my fucking balls off._ ” The boy mouths the words as the man says them. They both have shovels, the boy’s is far too big for him and he clutches it with both hands like it’s a rifle. The man has his casually slung over one shoulder.

“They say everyone’s gotta piss, and piss we do, but is there any difference if we piss in the ground or on it?”

The boy doesn’t answer and the man doesn’t expect him to. They hack at the dirt with their shovels — it’s been too cold lately. There is a layer of frost and under that hard frozen dirt. They dig until the man declares it deep enough, both their hands chapped and the boy’s are bleeding.

“What a shitty latrine, I’m blaming this on you.” The man says. The boy picks up his shovel again. “Don’t look at me like that, it was a joke. Now come on, since you’ve done a man’s job today let’s drink to it.”

He’s kind enough to give the boy a pair of gloves to soothe his fingers and nice enough not too laugh _too_ hard when two days old coffee and whiskey makes the boy grimace and cough. Two days from now the man will be dead and neither of them knows it.

2.

They’re only fifteen, but neither of them thinks it. It’s cold and even inside the frost has started to leak in under the door. They don’t think about it, clothes falling at a rapid rate. They’re both too efficient. Shoes, jacket, socks, shirt, pants, underwear.

Trowa stops to arrange his clothes on the floor, in the reverse order it was discarded. It’s habit. He likes to be quick to dress. They don’t talk about it — not the clothes, not the sex, not the way that Heero doesn’t know how to moderate himself or that Trowa only lets go of his control when he’s facing away.

It’s not the worst sex Trowa has ever had. It’s Heero’s first. They don’t talk about that either.

3.

The first time he doesn’t make any noise when the medic has to pull an inch of shrapnel from his shoulder the men applaud him. They ruffle his hair. They laugh and call him their little soldier. None of them ask his age, or his name, the captain only asks if he can follow orders.

(Years from now, he’ll get angry about the idea of child soldiers, but not include himself in this category.)

The fourth time he doesn’t make a sound when the medic stitches up his stomach, after he laid in the dirt and held his guts in, they whisper and look away. He knows it’s time to go then. Overstaying being precocious means they’ll see the truth.

He’s a monstrous soldier.

4.

“We’re only fifteen, you know? This isn’t forever love or anything. I won’t ask you to marry me, we just have to release some tension, right?” Duo is talking. Trowa only half-listens. They’re fucking and Duo is still talking and it’s about things Trowa doesn’t care about.

Duo is still talking, when they finish, and Trowa didn’t let his control go at all because he couldn’t look away because _Duo was still talking_. So instead he rolls over, onto his back and stares at the ceiling and asks: “Do you talk this much to Heero during sex?”

5.

The woman is much older than he is and when she laughs and says: “I’m old enough to be your mother, but you’re just so cute, I could eat you up.” He wonders if it’s been better that he’s never had a mother. He lets her touch him, lets her pull him close and bury her face in his hair and he lets her kiss him.

“I could fall in love with a serious boy like you.” She says.

“You shouldn’t.” He says.

He doesn’t let her pull him into her lap, he has to go, the mercenary caravan is moving on. She understands, she says he should stay, she’ll take good care of him. He doesn’t say anything.

6.

Quatre tells him that he’s in love. But Quatre’s been in love with all of them. It might be Duo, because they share laughter and smiles and communicate in a way that only people who want to communicate can do. It might be Heero, because there is something special about their bond. Because Quatre understands Heero’s wounded heart and offers his own. It could be Wufei, because he has a noble soul and Quatre does too. They both fight so hard to do what they feel is right.

“I’m happy for you.” Trowa says.

“I love you, Trowa.” Quatre says.

“You shouldn’t.” He says. “We’re only fifteen, and stupid.”

7.

You don’t build latrines in space. He’s too old to be nameless, but the crew accepts that anyway. They joke that he might be a spy, until someone has to teach him to read. Then they decide that no spy would be that quiet and that stupid.

He doesn’t mind. He could always read the important things, but on the ship to the colonies he learns how to read a lot of unimportant things too. 

There’s a man with a flute on board. He doesn’t ask to be taught, but when he watches he remembers the sounds and which fingers are placed which. If he could be taught to read music, it would be much more interesting, he thinks.

8.

Wufei doesn’t try to take anything from him. Trowa always gives freely, especially to them, but Wufei doesn’t ask for anything. He doesn’t meet Trowa in the same distant but desperate way Heero had and there’s no chatter and similar _necessity_ as there had been with Duo.

Wufei doesn’t profess to love him.

So, Trowa relaxes around him.

9.

He is almost fifteen, probably, when he gets a name. It isn’t his and it will (feels like it will) never be his. He picks it up like he would a wrench or a hammer. This name has a purpose and that purpose is cemented in that mobile suit.

When he loses his purpose he’ll lose his life. It won’t be so easy to discard Trowa Barton, because this is a purpose that will sink under his skin and put hooks in his heart.

He thinks, that’s fine. He wasn’t using it anyway — not his heart, not his life, not his existence as that monstrous soldier.

10.

They are no longer fifteen. Trowa thinks that time has done them good. Heero spent time with Relena and Trowa with Catherine. When they meet again they understand a little more. It is not as cold as it was before and they talk, some.

They don’t have sex.

Instead they lay on the roof and twine their fingers together and watch the sun rise and the moment is so funny that Heero laughs first and then Trowa joins him. They are soldiers after a war watching a sunset and time keeps moving forward without them.

11.

Heero is the perfect soldier. Trowa thinks the feeling he has is envy.

12.

“I told you it wasn’t love forever.” Duo says. “But here we are again.”

They are older and they are not in love. They would never be — will never be, probably. But it’s enough for Trowa to know that when Duo calls him on the phone, or when he sees him, he grins and waves and says _Trowa_. That name is still his and it means something.

And, they are naked again. And, they will have sex again.

13.

It was never fear of space, of floating, of dying in orbit. When it was all he could remember he held onto that panic, of course. It ripped through him again and again when he remembered nothing else.

But when he remembered himself, he knew what it truly was. The same cold panic ripped through him when he peeled back the layers of his roles. If he stripped away Trowa Barton, took off his soldier’s coat, removed his mechanic jacket, continued down until there was only him, young and nameless and empty.

14.

“You’re not this handsy with Maxwell,” Wufei complains, but he doesn’t mean it. Trowa hums in agreement, because he isn’t. Because he and Duo have sex and that’s mostly what they do. 

They’ve come to watch fireworks, celebrations for something that probably isn’t worth celebrating but it’s a milestone of peace. Wufei thinks it’s great, even if it’s false, probably. Trowa doesn’t think much of it, but he keeps their hands together because it’s comfortable.

15.

Ever since the girl, he doesn’t like gifts. He tells himself it’s because it’s a waste, he’ll have to throw them out anyway. Or, he’ll try to think it’s because he doesn’t deserve them. (He wants them, really, a gift with a tag addressed just to him, even if he doesn’t have a name).

He tells himself he doesn’t care about her.

The truth, though, is that gifts remind him that she tricked him. They remind him that she tricked him because he thought she thought he was someone worth giving something to. (And, he thinks, he might be.)

16.

Quatre gets him a bracelet. Trowa doesn’t wear jewelry of any kind and he’s never really thought about doing so but the bracelet arrives in a box on his apartment stoop. Underneath the paper there is a gift tag made out to Trowa Barton.

He doesn’t know what to do with it. It can’t be worn during work and instinct tells him it probably doesn’t go with anything he wears.

He thanks Quatre for it, honestly, profoundly touched. He doesn’t tell Quatre it’s his first gift, because it isn’t but also because that would be too complicated. He keeps it in the small pocket in his daybag, because it’s important.

17.

He’s probably in love with Heero.

18.

He buys Duo a set of throwing knives because it occurs to him that he doesn’t know if Duo has ever received gifts before. Of course, he doesn’t ask, but judging from how Duo reacts — he might be close. Or maybe, Duo doesn’t get knives as gifts often and he really should.

They do more than just sex, that night. Trowa finds himself talking back when Duo chatters.

19.

When he returned from the war he kissed her forehead. And he said he was sorry and he took both her hands and held them and didn’t say anything else. There were too many things to say and instead of just being quiet he felt the burning heavy weight of awkwardness.

She laughed, though, and hugged him and kissed _his_ forehead and said: Welcome home, Trowa.

20.

It’s the first time they’ve had sex since they were fifteen. Heero traces lines on Trowa’s hips, as if that would erase scars and Trowa says it — just drops the words right between Heero’s shoulderblades.

It’s still not quite right. Trowa wonders if he messed it up, because there wasn’t any reason to say it and after that they became frantic again and much like when they were fifteen it was too chaotic but Heero’s hands were gentler and Trowa didn’t look away as often and it was much better and they talked — but didn’t talk about it.

But then Heero pulls him close and just says _Trowa_ with all the weight of it being his name and that’s a lot like love.

So, it’s probably fine.


End file.
